Laced

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” the woman said.

“Do you know them?” Regan asked.

The woman took the question as an invitation to join them. She slumped into a chair at the next table which was just a few feet away. “I’ll sit and talk to you for a minute. I’m tired of unpacking boxes. My name is Breda.”

Regan and Jack introduced themselves. “So you know the Thompsons?” Regan asked again.

“Well, I can’t say I exactly know them. I know them, but I don’t know them.” Breda laughed. “That’s the way it is with a lot of people around here. At first they seem really friendly, but the heart of the matter is, they keep their distance.” She nodded knowingly. “My husband tells me I talk too much and ask too many questions.” She paused. “Why do you want to speak to the Thompsons?”

“We want to find out if they remember anything about a couple they might have encountered in a road race last November,” Jack told her, omitting the fact that the Thompsons were people they wanted to check out. “You see, we are staying at He

Breda’s mouth dropped. “I heard on the radio about the thieves who were out to get you, but I didn’t know they might have been in the Fun Run last November! Let me get myself a cup of tea.” She got up and hurried to the back.

“Perfect,” Regan said to Jack. Jack winked at her as she bit into her sandwich. It was delicious.

“Here I come,” Breda bellowed a moment later. She appeared again, plopping back down in her chair. “So you think these thieves might be staying in Ireland?”

“We don’t know,” Jack answered honestly. “But they were certainly at He

“And Brad and Linda ran in the Fun Run?”

“We think so.” Jack asked casually, “What can you tell us about Brad and Linda?”

Breda’s eyes glittered with excitement as she pursed her lips. “They’re Americans.”

So far, so good, Regan thought.

“They’re new around here. I haven’t seen them much. They don’t live here all the time.”

Description still fits, Regan mused.

“What do they do?” Jack asked.

“I couldn’t tell you. They’re middle-aged; maybe they’re retired. They’ve been in the store a handful of times and said something about buying their house as an investment. They’re always pleasant but don’t volunteer much. I’ve never seen them at church or at anything in town here. Not that there’s much to do.”

“You don’t have a phone number for them, do you?” Jack asked.

“No.”

Regan was dying to ask Breda what the Thompsons looked like, but it would sound too suspicious. “We have the Thompsons’ address,” Regan said, “but we didn’t want to just show up and ring their bell.”

“I understand,” Breda said. “People buy houses around here because they want their privacy. Some people come here to write or paint in peace. Others are looking for the answer to the question, ‘What’s it all about, Alfie?’ and think they’ll find it in the middle of a bog. I don’t know. But the Thompsons seem like decent people who would want to help you catch a couple of criminals. You say they’re jewel thieves, right? Let me tell you something, Linda Thompson has deadly jewelry! You don’t see many people wearing the baubles she does to come in and buy a bag of feed. I’m sure Linda Thompson would be happy to answer your questions.” Breda jumped up. “Let’s see if they’re home. I’ll drive you down there right now. We received some wonderful jam in today’s delivery that the Thompsons specifically told me they liked. It’ll be a friendly gesture to drop off a jar, say hello, and introduce you.”

“You’ve been to their house before?” Regan asked.

“Not inside, but I know where everyone in these parts lives. I drove by the Thompsons’ cottage after they moved in.”

“What about the store?” Regan asked, looking around.

“Does it look busy to you? I think my husband can handle it by himself until I get back.” She took off her apron and yelled, “Sam! I’ll be back in a while!”

“Okay” came the response.

“Let’s go,” Breda commanded, grabbing her car keys from a hook by the door.

They were actually the keys to her little pickup truck.

Regan sat in the middle between Jack and Breda, who apparently thought she was driving an ambulance. They barreled down the tiny main street of Westweg.

“I love to be out in the wide-open spaces,” Breda said with exuberance. “I live in the country, but I’m cooped up in that store for hours on end. It’s not bad but…” She pressed her foot on the accelerator and zoomed around a slow-moving truck that was weighted down with piles of sod.

Regan felt her life passing before her eyes. We should have offered to follow her, she thought.

Jack cleared his throat. “Have you lived here long?”

“I lived in the next village growing up. I met Sam when we were both twenty. We’re married twenty-five years. Two kids. Whoops!” She turned the truck quickly onto a road full of potholes. “Sorry. I’m on auto-pilot, thinking I was on my way home. I’d better slow down with all these bumps.”

There is a God, Regan thought.

After ten more minutes of bumping along, they made a turn and drove through a set of gates toward a cottage in the distance where a man and a woman were outside gardening. “They’re here!” Breda exulted as she started honking the horn and waving. “I wonder why they haven’t been in the store!”

This isn’t how I imagined we’d approach people who might be Jane and John Doe, Regan thought, her heart beating fast. She could tell that Jack was also a little tense. They had programmed a main number of the garda into Jack’s cell phone and promised to contact the officials if they had anything to report about the Does or if they needed help.

The Thompsons glanced over at the oncoming truck and started to get up from the ground as Breda pulled closer and closer. But when the smiling couple straightened up to their full size, Regan’s heightened emotions fell flat.

The woman was head and shoulders taller than the man.

Clearly they were not Jane and John Doe.

Jack turned to look at Regan. She could tell he was disappointed. “Come on,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Let’s see what they have to tell us about the Fun Run.”

27

Dr. Sharkey fixed up Margaret Raftery with a temporary cap nearly identical to Bobby’s. “We’re lucky your whole tooth didn’t break off,” he told her. “It’s going to take a few more visits before we get you in order.”

Margaret was floating in the chair, the nitrous oxide mask covering her nose. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll kill two birds with one stone and go to the gym when I come back to Galway.”

“Isn’t Rory wonderful?” Dr. Sharkey asked.

“So he is,” Margaret said. “I love him. I just love him. He thinks I’m a wonderful painter.”

“You paint?”

“Indeed. And I drew the decal for the Fun Run.”

“My mother and I were in the Fun Run!”

“Bully for you.”

Sharkey laughed. “That decal was perfect for the race. It captured the spirit of the day. A fun decal for the Fun Run.”

“Right. A fun decal for the Fun Run.” Margaret started laughing. She hadn’t felt this carefree for a long time. She’d completely forgotten that losing her tooth might be a sign of her impending death.

“Who are your friends?” Dr. Sharkey asked, pointing to the receptionist’s area.

“They’re staying at He

“They did? I must tell Mother. Now take a look, Margaret.” He held up the mirror.

Margaret smiled. The ensuing horror she felt penetrated the nitrous oxide haze. “It looks as though it needs a good cleaning, it does…”

“It’s a temporary cap,” Dr. Sharkey assured her. “The permanent one will be beautiful. Now let me turn on the oxygen and bring you back down to earth.”